Carla Tate (Juliette Lewis) has never been like her sisters. Sent at a young age to a school for children with intellectual impairments, a maturing Carla returns to her family home in San Francisco. Her overbearing mother, Elizabeth (Diane Keaton), and patient father, Radley (Tom Skerritt), struggle to come to terms with Carla's growing independence as she embarks on her dream of attending college and pursues a romance with Danny (Giovanni Ribisi), a young man with a similar disability.